#i hate how little a chance dimitri is given outside of blue lions route & even then it's like. they're not exactly kind to him then either.

[windupaidoneus]

hiii cat blinks @ u .. dimitri for the bingo if ur still doing these

youre in luck...... i love having opinions!!!!!!!!

dimitri is. a tough one. i think he has a lot of potential & i can easily imagine a world in which he's given the treatment he deserves by the writers. i used to not like him because 1) i fucked up pretty much everything pre-timeskip support wise & only recruited lorenz which was pointless anyway bc he was gonna join me regardless. lmao. lol., but this means i didn't get the Better version of post-timeskip dimitri, & 2) i associated him with the classmate who lent me the game when i first played it bc he'd pretty much told me like, "yeah you Have to start with blue lions bc i'm such a huge dimitri fan" & like. the flaws that i found in that classmate very much made me go "oh i see why you like dimitri" in a very uhh negative light!!! but now it's been a few years i can def see the good in his character beyond being the guy the most annoying pedantic victim complex-having white cis dude youve ever met would latch onto. he is not dimitri. he will never be dimitri. dimitri is far better. & i i like him despite the mental illness & trauma being written the way it is. fire emblem does Not have a good track record with writing mental illnesses so it'd be unfair to hold it against him specifically when he's a victim of the writing etc etc ... all this to say if he needs a hug i can give him that & i'm sorry about all the miseries & stuff. OH ALSO GIVE ME THE OPTION TO SPARE HIM IN VERDANT WIND WHAT THE FUCK

[nicolewrites]

on the day that it rains

I’m.... sorry.

Rating: T+ Genre: Angst Characters: Sylvain Jose Gautier & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Felix Hugo Fraldarius Words: 1,746

News arrives from Arianrhod. / cf route

AO3

Faerghus is broken. It is fundamentally fucked up. Crests prop up a pompous nobility and greedy men manipulate children and systems to gain power. Women are passed over as objects and looked down upon for hard-earned battle scars and an attitude unbecoming of future wives. 

Ingrid has told him these things over and over and Sylvain knows it. He knows how Crests can tear people apart and send them spiralling into jealous, murderous rages over the simplest things. He has the scars to prove it. 

Sometimes Sylvain wonders what it would have been like to have been asked to leave the Blue Lion house five years ago. He knows that if the professor had asked him, there would have been a good chance that he would have said yes. He would have dropped everything to join her side. There was something magnetic about Byleth and Sylvain was far from immune to her effect. 

Still, she hadn’t asked, so he hadn’t had to make the terrible decision to leave his friends and family in the Blue Lions. In fact, she had only asked Ashe to join her, but the young archer had declined, too loyal to his homeland. 

Sylvain sometimes thinks about how it would have worked out if he had joined Byleth. He probably would have been amongst the group that gathered at Garreg Mach during the Millennium Festival five years after the war had begun. He would have probably escaped Gautier with only the clothes on his back and maybe a mount, if he was lucky. It wouldn’t have mattered. The Empire was well-off enough to have supplied him with whatever he needed. 

He would have fought off the knights and helped take down Claude in Derdriu. He would have marched towards Arianrhod. 

Sylvain hums quietly to himself as he brushes out the coat of his warhorse. The horse shifts under his touch, exhaling heavily. Sylvain chuckles and just pats the horse’s neck, soothing it. It’s not a secret that the horses all seem to hate the makeshift war camp that has been erected and the shoddy temporary stable that is a part of it. 

They probably could have chosen a better spot for the stable and the entire camp, but Dimitri was insisting that they be ready to move on the Tailtean Plains as soon as they received word that something was even remotely wrong at the Kingdom stronghold in Arianrhod. Sylvain had accompanied Dimitri on this mission without a word of complaint because he knew that he was needed here. 

Over five years of war, Sylvain had watched his prince change. Dimitri had offered sanctuary to Rhea and the Knights of Seiros upon the loss of Garreg Mach. Then, when Edelgard had pulled out of the Monastery, Sylvain and the other Blue Lions had all congregated in Fhirdiad to begin the awful dance of war that would last for five long years. 

Something about Dimitri had snapped after Edelgard had betrayed the church, but it was the constant guidance and presence of his friends that had channelled his strength into their war efforts and, slowly, Dimitri had returned to them. He had his moments of blind rage and anger, but for the most part, he was the picture of his father before him: a king with too many burdens. 

The Blue Lions did their best to ease the burdens on Dimitri, but they didn’t all get it. Ashe and Annette are young and idealistic. Mercedes is too compassionate to understand the raw anger that tormented Dimitri. Felix and Ingrid and Sylvain know what that anger stems from. They have been around for long enough to know what kind of burdens Dimitri tries to shoulder alone. Dedue, too, is a necessary and steadfast silent presence at Dimitri’s side. 

The order to take the battle to Edelgard at the Tailtean Plains had been Dimitri’s call in order to protect the innocent citizens of Fhirdiad from a horrid battle. He had been backed by Rhea, whose descent into madness is even more obvious than Dimitri’s. She is going by Seiros these days, which raises more questions than it answers, but Sylvain doesn’t take orders from her, so he doesn’t bother trying to dismantle whatever is going on with Rhea. 

Sylvain’s orders come from Dimitri which is why he is here, in this terrible stable, brushing his horse in the way that Ingrid had taught him. 

Sylvain likes horses. He thinks they are beautiful and easy to get along with if you treat them well, but he doesn’t have Ingrid’s touch. He isn’t sure what it is exactly, but Ingrid is the best horseman Sylvain has ever met. She can calm the wildest mares and is widely beloved by every horse and pegasus in the stable. Her skills with horses are rivalled only, perhaps, by Ferdinand’s skills from back at the academy. 

Sylvain turns and places the brush down on the bucket behind him. He can hear Ingrid’s voice in his head telling him to go for the small metal comb next, so he picks it up. His horse huffs and stamps its feet. Sylvain strokes the side of his mount’s face, hushing it quietly. He gently begins pulling the comb through the horse’s mane. It catches on a few tangles, but it is better than it would have been when Sylvain was a child. Ingrid really has changed his habits for the better. 

Felix used to sit on the bench in the stable and scowl at Ingrid and Sylvain as they worked with their horses. Felix always claimed he didn’t understand the point of riding a horse into battle since if it died, there was a good chance that the rider would be hurled away, landing injured, or that the rider would simply be crushed beneath the horse’s body. 

Ingrid had always been horribly offended by Felix’s comments, but Sylvain was good at ignoring his best friend. He would just drag Ingrid away into the stables and set her to work on something else to distract her. 

Sylvain’s comb catches on a tangle in the mane right as the stable tent flap flies open. He snaps his head up and stares as a man in battered leather armour stumbles into the tent, leading a wounded horse. Sylvain quickly places his comb down and rounds his horse, approaching the injured, muddy man. 

The man stumbles, dropping his horse’s reins and Sylvain lunges, grabbing the man’s arms as he droops forward. Sylvain pulls the man upright and studies the man’s rain-soaked and bloodied appearance. 

“Who are you?” Sylvain asks urgently. 

The man shudders weakly. “A messenger. From Arianrhod.”

Sylvain feels cold. He drops his hands to his side and holds his breath, hoping that he had misheard. 

“Arianrhod,” he repeats faintly. 

“Yes,” the messenger agrees. “I have an urgent message for His Highness.” “Arianrhod has fallen,” Sylvain guesses. 

The messenger nods and coughs. The man grips his drenched armour and shivers and Sylvain steps back, feeling his heart twist in his chest. 

“Right,” Sylvain murmurs, his military training momentarily taking over as he nods to the messenger. “Head to the command tent. I can handle your mount.” The messenger straightens up and nods. “Yes, sir.” He turns away from Sylvain quickly enough that he does not see the tremble in Sylvain’s hands. The man swiftly leaves the tent, off to deliver the bad news. 

This time, when he brushes through the tent flap, Sylvain catches sight of the thundering rain pounding over the ground outside. 

When he is alone, Sylvain slowly turns and takes the reins of the injured horse. He tugs its tack off gently and leads it to an empty stall. The horse has a white mark just below its right ear and Sylvain’s throat tightens. He trained this horse. He trained this horse with Ingrid’s help. 

Ingrid who had been deployed at Arianrhod with Felix and Rodrigue. 

The horse has beat-up regalia depicted a high ranking battalion in the Kingdom army. The shield-shaped insignia gives Sylvain pause as he rubs a thumb over the wet metal decoration. The shield looks like Aegis, the Fraldarius Relic that Rodrigue had entrusted to Felix during their time at the academy. 

Felix who had been deployed at his father’s side in a show of defiance against the Empire. Felix who had promised to die with Sylvain so that they didn’t have to be apart. Felix who was Sylvain’s best friend through all the chaos of their childhood years and the madness of the five years of war. 

Sylvain’s hand shakes as he unbuckles the bridle. He swallows and a shaky hum pulls from his chest as he tries to soothe the horse as he strips it of its torn equipment. 

War is full of death, Sylvain knows this, and yet until this point, it feels like every soldier who has died was just a simple person without a face. He didn’t know their names and their families. He hadn’t given them signet rings as a promise for the future. 

If Arianrhod has fallen, then Felix and Ingrid have fallen with it. Felix, though he claims to hate chivalry and knighthood, is loyal to the death. Ingrid, who aspires to be the best version of a knight, would die for her beliefs. If Arianrhod has fallen, then they will be marching for the centre of the Tailtean Plains soon. 

Felix has fallen with Sylvain’s promise tied around his little finger and Sylvain drops his hands away from the horse, feeling ill. Ingrid has fallen with Sylvain’s ring on a leather string around her neck and his future packed into the dirt with her body where it would have fallen. He has lost his best friend and the love of his life and Sylvain’s stomach turns so quickly that he turns fully away from the horse, crumpling forward. 

He vomits onto the ground until his stomach is empty and still heaving. He breathes out warily and stares at the nearby flooded puddle in the stables. The horses around him whinny in discomfort and distaste at the smell of Sylvain’s sick. 

His hands shake as he wipes his mouth and straightens up. His teeth sink into his lip as he picks up the loose-toothed comb and heads back towards his horse. His hands shake as he runs the comb through the mane. 

On the day it rains, Sylvain loses his heart. On the day it rains, Sylvain knows that he is next.